Boutique NYC PR Agency Shares Recipe for Food and Beverage Promotion during the New Normal

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​Let’s face it, we all have to eat and drink.  During this COVID-19 pandemic, at home consumption for purchases at grocery stories has prospered as people have been forced to stay at home.  

Allen Marketing Communications, Inc., a boutique travel, food and beverage public relations agency, stays abreast of industry trends to launch a new product or reinvigorate an established brand. Here’s our recipe for success to help our food and beverage clients break through the clutter and capture their share of mouth and share of wealth.

Media relations is a cost effective marketing tool to generate generates credible third-party earned media and builds brand and consumer awareness. ­­­­­It is important to send food and beverage writers, bloggers and influencers product samples so they can sample the products first hand and feature it in their media outlet.

Depending on the client’s budget, our skilled food and beverage public relations professionals recommend a MAT release, also known as a camera ready article, syndicated to newspapers across the country. The MAT Release has expanded to reach consumers through 30 to 60 radio and television spots.  Although it is a sponsored editorial content, the MAT release is quite effective to raise consumer awareness and stimulate sales for a new or established product.   

Food Trade Associations
Our team is a huge advocate for the Specialty Food Association (SFA), a membership based trade association for more than 3,500 food and beverage artisans, importers, and entrepreneurs.  The SFA makes connections for new, emerging and established food and beverage companies with buyers and distributors to expand the product into retail stores, airports and hotels.

This non-profit has played an influential role in making Choubani and other brands household names. 

During this COVID-19 pandemic, many food trade associations and shows are offering virtual expos to raise awareness for the new or established product through 20-minte interactive sessions. 

Email Marketing

Dedicated emails to a targeted group of influential decision makers can also help to generate brand and consumer awareness food and beverage product.  Our team often curates opportunities through trade shows to extend our clients reach and introduce their products to new customers.

Email marketing is quite effective because you can track to open rate, click through, as well as obtain information about individuals who opt in or opt out for a particular email campaign.  Often, the email marketing campaign includes hyperlinks drive traffic back to your client’s website.

Blogs

For clients with a shoe string budget, blogs are effective to increase our client’s visibility in online searches.  It is really important to integrate client’s branded SEO keywords into the blog and to post two or three times a week to increase your clients’ visibility with online searches and stimulate sales.

Display Advertising

Whether a client has a small, medium or large budget, display advertising can help to raise awareness for a new product.  It is a pay per click advertising service.  Your client simply sets the budget spend and you can increase and decrease the budget during the month long campaign.

To truly maximize the display advertising, it is important to know your client’s branded SEO keywords to help you reach first-time and repeat customers and drive traffic back to your website to facilitate a discovery and our purchase for the product.

Retargeting Advertising

For clients’ who have customers who are already visiting their website, retargeting advertising can present a dedicated ad to individuals who are already surfing your website.  Retargeting advertising is quite effective for keeping a visitor engaged since it will direct them to content of interest to them on the website.

Cause-Related Marketing positions a food and beverage company as a good corporate citizen by having a percentage of sales donated to support a particular 501 © charitable cause.  It is a win win situation for both the small, mid-size and multi-national organizations 1) sell a product, 2) raise funds a worthwhile charities and 3) to position the company as dedicated to supporting philanthropy.

The food industry has been a huge supporter for causes such as Share Our Strength, Food Bank, No Kid Hunger and Feeding America to do their part to eliminate hunger in America.

Our talented team of skilled travel, food and beverage public relations professionals can help food and beverage companies break through the clutter and capture their share of market and share of wealth.

We are here to help. Give us a call.

​By Joanna Allen, chief executive officer, Allen Marketing Communications, Inc.
 

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